Boundless Optimism

Thanks go to John Redwood and his supporters for providing the inspiration for my  Rooted to the Spot Article of the week. He tweeted that the Treasury needed to have more "optimistic, realistic forecasts" about impact of Brexit. This must be one of the best for pushing the idea that all we need is more optimism.

He needs to choose which he wants. Civil servants are professionals and are almost certainly trying to be realistic. They like everyone else will want the best outcome for the country, but they know that means they need to produce the most accurate forecasts they can to inform the decision making process. They may be wrong, but not deliberately so, and I may be naive but I still prefer to rely on their efforts rather than Mr Redwood's opinions. 

At the same time the Brexiters are urging the Chancellor to make more money available to cover the costs of supporting  a no-deal Brexit now. They don't appear to remember that they promote Brexit as a means of saving, even gaining, not costing money. In their frustration and anger over the so far unproductive discussions they are beginning to reveal their true colours.

So I fired up my optimism and applied it to the challenges, sorry, opportunities, facing me here at the Sticks following my retirement for this week's article.

Travel Diaries

In other sections I began the transcription of my 1983 USA travel diary. A nice reminder of the days of Maggie and Ronnie, and of course of my youth before I ever thought about the EU or EEC as it was known then. Another retirement project will be digitising my USA 1983 photographs, all currently on Kodak Kodachrome 64 (remember that Brexiters? The kids will love that for all their selfies and pictures of their dinner, and the good news is there are rumours it could possibly make a come back).